One thing that I think always gets overlooked is the accessibility of the performance of these bikes. Let’s take for example a normal sportbike encounter… the stoplight drag race. If you’re planning on launching your Ducati Panigale off the stoplight at near its maximum acceleration, you’ll need to get your timing just right… revs way up (everyone staring at you now)… wait for the light… wait… wait… then perfect finesse of clutch release and throttle application… too much and the bike wheelies, too little and it bogs and everyone laughs at you for making such a ruckus. Meanwhile, our hero on the Empulse simply waits for the light to turn green, twists the throttle and achieves the optimal launch, every time, over and over and over… while the Panigale owner botches it 9 times out of ten. While the Empulse may not compete with a Ducati Panigale in “on-paper” acceleration, my experience tells me that in the real world, the performance the bike does have is far more accessible to the everyday rider. This is what I believe you’re hearing about in the rider’s real world reviews. It’s not imagined, the bike IS faster more of the time, in more conditions, for more people…

No surprise that I am looking forward to a ride on the Empulse. Whether it happens when the Brammo Empulse Road Show comes through Kansas City (probably not going to happen, but one can dream) or when I visit my fellow member of the Society of Brammo Evangelists of the Year, Jeremy Dory, who just won an Empulse R, I intend to test out the real world accessibility of performance.

I was watching my “Nearby” feed on Google + when I noticed a posting by Louie Buchanan, a Kansas City artist who is slowly carving out a niche in the custom-painted motorcycle helmet world. Here’s the helmet I saw, initially:

I’m not that much into skulls, especially when they are on the back of something which my skull is currently inside of, but I could see talent here and I was interested. I began chatting with Louie on G+ and asked him to take a look at my current helmet, an AGV Miglia, and the current design detail, a Brammo bull’s head logo:

I told Louie about my bike – most significantly, that it’s electric. A few days later, he sent me this:

I liked the “electric” feel of this, but, before I could make any suggestions, Louie sent me one that he thought reflected the “American Made” aspect of Brammo:

I tend to think that Harley Davidson has the stars and stripes angle on motorcycle riding gear pretty wrapped up, so I told him that while I liked his creativity, I didn’t want to go with the “Old Glory” design. I did, however, appreciate what I thought was a subliminally suggestive figure of a female body under the sheets. Can anyone else see it, or am I just being a dirty old man?

Louie then sent me the following design, which, I think, is what I’m going with. I like the chrome-like accents, the stripes, and especially, the electric arc effects wrapping around the stripes:

If you’re interested in working with Louie on your ideas for a custom painted helmet, he is extremely easy to work with and has a lot of creative energy to expend on these projects. He’s got a Facebook page: L B Customs or you can email him at lbcustoms2012@yahoo.com.

I am deeply saddened to report that our colleague and good friend Mark Buckley has been killed on the final day of the North West 200.
Mark, 35, was taking part in the third race of five on Saturday. Following the incident Mark was taken to hospital where he later died.
Brammo staff are devastated by this news. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Jayne and we extend our deepest sympathies to his family and friends.
Mark rode the #26 Brammo Enertia TTR to 3rd place in the inaugural Isle of Man TT Zero Emissions race in 2009.

Buckley was a great racer, and a decent human being. Recently, I had been chatting with him on Twitter and he had offered to have the shirt, above, (which was a gift to me from JCAM, Brammo’s Hong Kong distributor), autographed by Roy Richardson, the rider of the #11 Brammo bike in the 2009 TTXGP on the Isle of Man.

Busted. He found me out – I’d been using a photo of him from the TTXGP as my emotorules twitter profile image for years.

His last tweet to me:

Mark, talking about the Brammo Enertia TTR.

And one of my favorite photos from that first electric motorcycle race on the IOM:

Riding past the fuel tanks that would not be necessary to propel him into 3rd place in the 2009 TTXGP.

And another.

Buckley, on the #26 Brammo bike, coming up from behind the #11 bike, ridden by Roy Richardson.

My thanks to you, Mr. Buckley, for the memories. My thoughts and wishes to your wife and family.

Can’t make it to Los Angeles to watch the unveiling of the Brammo Empulse electric motorcycle? Or maybe you’re there but don’t have a thing to wear? Or didn’t score an invite?
No worries. Tune in with the rest of us who will be watching it from the comfort or our mother’s basement, or living room, or internet cafe, etc.

The Main Stage:http://www.livestream.com/brammo
This is where you can watch the event unfold. Livestream has its own chat sidebar, but we’ll be keeping our eyes on the twitter stream that will be running hot, all night long. Want to see your witty suggestions about a 25 mile long extension cord or playing cards in the spokes show up on the page? Make sure to use the hashtags #Brammo #Empulse in your tweet. Not sure what a hashtag or tweet is? Go back to myspace.com and we’ll educate you, tomorrow.

The Sideshow:
Twitter – use those hashtags! Follow @BrammoSays, the official voice of Brammo. Other Brammo voices, include, but are not limited to: @BrammoCraig – the big guy, CEO Craig Bramscher. Not sure if he’ll be tweeting much tonight, but you never know. @BrammoDesigner – Director of Product Development Brian Wismann. @BrammoPAnton – Peter Anton – the new guy, head of social media and the only guy I know to ride two-up with an internet starlet. (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0P_zPglviA&feature=player_embedded )

The REAL fans, however, will be dissecting everything over on the Brammo Owners Forum – http://brammoforum.com . Likely, we’ll be in the Brammo Empulse subforum. You don’t have to join to read the discussion, but you do have to join if you want to give your two cents.

I’ll update this post if anything else especially relevant comes to mind. If you don’t hear from me here, you should know, by now, where to find me. I’ll be the one drooling over Empulse, of course.